Al Qaeda ‘got CIA money as ransom’

WASHINGTON: Afghanistan used about $1 million provided by the CIA to a secret government fund to pay Al Qaeda in 2010 for a diplomat’s release, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

The terror group’s leader at the time, Osama Bin Laden, worried that the Americans knew about the payment and were either tracing the cash or had laced it with poison or radiation, and suggested it be converted to another currency, according to the Times.